Cover: Priorities for Investments in Children and Families in Caddo and Bossier Parishes
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Priorities for Investments in Children and Families in Caddo and Bossier Parishes

Application of a Unique Framework for Identifying Priorities

by M. Rebecca Kilburn, Shannon Maloney

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In Louisiana, the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier pools funds from sources in Caddo and Bossier Parishes, manages the funds, and allocates the funding within the two-parish region. (The City of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish; the city of Bossier City is in Bossier Parish.) In 2008, the foundation selected education, health, and poverty as priority areas for its investments in children and families, and it asked the RAND Corporation to assist the community in identifying priority strategies within these three focus areas. RAND researchers developed a unique framework based on the intersection of needs, assets, and best practices. Applying this framework to the Shreveport-Bossier community, they identified health care providers, public school teachers, and Barksdale Air Force Base as strong assets that can help the community address three high-need areas: infant health, child maltreatment, and educational attainment. The “Needs-Assets-Best Practices” framework developed to assist the Shreveport-Bossier community can be applied in many other settings; this document can be viewed as a case study of the application of the framework.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter One

    Introduction

  • Chapter Two

    Approaches to Identifying Priority Investments

  • Chapter Three

    Findings

  • Chapter Four

    Recommendations: The Intersection of Needs, Assets, and Best Practices

  • Appendix A

    Other Needs Assessment Graphs

  • Appendix B

    Needs Indicator Data Sources

  • Appendix C

    Dates and Agenda for Community Meetings

Research conducted by

This research was sponsored by the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier and was conducted within RAND Child Policy and in collaboration with the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute.

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